Gaza unrest sends message about economic misery under Israeli blockade

Palestinian men take out migratory quails from a net on a beach, as catching migratory quails offers seasonal jobs for some unemployed Gazans, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Sept. 30, 2023. (Reuters)
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Updated 04 October 2023
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Gaza unrest sends message about economic misery under Israeli blockade

  • Some 2.3 million people live in the narrow coastal strip, where per capita income is around a quarter the level in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
  • In the recent unrest, youths hurling stones and improvised explosive devices faced off against Israeli troops along the border fence

GAZA: Weeks of violent protests by young men in Gaza have sent a message about the dire financial squeeze in the Israeli-blockaded enclave, economists and even some senior Israeli officials believe, and relief measures may be in the offing.
Ostensibly the protests, organized by youth groups but backed by Gaza’s ruling movement Hamas, were about the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and visits by Jewish groups to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, who know it as the Temple Mount.
But a senior Israeli official noted the relative restraint by Hamas, which did not officially join the protests itself or launch more rockets at Israel. He suggested the more immediate reason for the unrest was less long-time grievances related to the Palestinian national cause and more Gaza’s economic misery.
“The protests are about money,” said the Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the topic’s sensitivity. “What we’re seeing on the (border) fence is a message. They are asking for financial help.”
Some 2.3 million people live in the narrow coastal strip, where per capita income is around a quarter the level in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and where over half the population lives below the poverty line, according to IMF estimates.
In the recent unrest, youths hurling stones and improvised explosive devices faced off against Israeli troops along the border fence who responded with live fire before calm was restored last week by Egyptian, UN and Qatari negotiators.
Sources close to the mediation said while some of Hamas’s demands are political, relaxing economic sanctions against Gaza is key to at least maintaining calm along the frontier.
The sources expect Israel, which along with Egypt maintains a tight blockade of the Gaza Strip that has helped cripple its economy, to announce further easings in coming days, including hundreds more permits for work in Israel.
Since 2021, when it fought a 10-day war with Hamas, Israel has softened some curbs on Gaza, offering thousands of work permits as well as measures to facilitate exports and improve its dilapidated utilities after years of underinvestment.

FRAGILE CEASEFIRE
A recent International Monetary Fund report said that for any stable long-term economic recovery in Gaza, “lifting of the blockade and easing of the Israeli-imposed restrictions are essential.”
It noted that Gaza had lagged far behind the West Bank over the past 15 years, mainly due to the years of isolation and repeated conflict after Hamas came to power in 2007, with 77 percent of households receiving aid, mainly cash or food.
With an official unemployment rate in Gaza of over 46 percent, Hamas itself has faced rumbling discontent over its economic management although for its part, the movement blames the Israeli blockade for the enclave’s economic woes.
“If there’s to be an explosion, let it be against the party that created these conditions, which is the (Israeli) occupation,” said senior Hamas official Bassem Naim.
Hamas leaders say any calm in Gaza will remain fragile unless Israel lifts the blockade and ends “aggressive measures and assaults in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” but they signal no interest in a new war.
Aware of the potential for worsening instability in Gaza, Israel has issued over 18,000 work permits to Palestinians there, which has allowed workers to bring in some $2 million a day and offered other forms of economic relief.
“The permit is everything for me, it is my life. If permits stop I will stop,” said Bilal Al-Najar, who took in 30-35 shekels ($7.70-$9.05) a day as a vegetable vendor in Gaza before earning 10 times more working in a restaurant in the southern Israeli city of Lod.
Gaza’s clothing sector, one of the main beneficiaries of any moderation of the blockade, has seen sales rise 10-fold since 2015, the year after an earlier war, and this year revenues look set to top the $22 million generated in 2022.
“If crossings are open, and the political situation is good this makes things in Gaza fit for a bigger revival both for work and for living,” said Bashir Al-Bawab, CEO of Unipal Company, one of Gaza’s largest clothing factories that have partnerships with Israeli companies.
But while Israel has offered economic incentives to avoid conflict, they are always liable to being cut off abruptly, exposing companies like Unipal, which exports 150,000 items a month to Israel, to constant uncertainty.
Last month, Israel imposed a brief blockade on exports from Gaza after inspectors said they uncovered an attempt to smuggle explosives into the West Bank. It then followed up by closing crossing points used by workers going to their jobs in Israel and the West Bank in response to the border protests. ($1 = 3.8675 shekels)


Delayed Gaza polio vaccinations to resume on Saturday, agencies say

Updated 01 November 2024
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Delayed Gaza polio vaccinations to resume on Saturday, agencies say

  • The final phase of the campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children under 10 years old

GAZA: The third phase of a delayed polio vaccination campaign in Gaza will begin on Saturday, aid organizations said on Friday, after the rollout was derailed by Israeli bombardments, mass displacement and lack of access.
The polio campaign began on Sept. 1 after the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed in August that a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
The humanitarian pause to conduct the campaign had been agreed but WHO and the UN children’s agency UNICEF said the area covered by the agreement had been substantially reduced from the previous pause in September, and would now cover only Gaza City.
The final phase of the campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children under 10 years old in northern Gaza with a second dose of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2). However, achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints, the statement said.
COGAT, the Israeli army’s Palestinian civilian affairs agency, said it was helping to coordinate the three-day campaign and once it was complete, there would be an assessment to decide whether the schedule would be extended.
“This coordination will ensure that the population can safely reach medical centers where the vaccines will be administered,” it said in a statement.


Macron recognizes French soldiers killed Algerian independence hero in 1957

Updated 01 November 2024
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Macron recognizes French soldiers killed Algerian independence hero in 1957

  • France’s century-long colonization of Algeria and viciously fought 1954-62 war of independence left deep scars on both sides

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron on Friday acknowledged that Larbi Ben M’hidi, a key figure in Algeria’s War of Independence against France, had been killed by French soldiers after his arrest in 1957, the French presidency said.
“He recognized today that Larbi Ben M’hidi, a national hero for Algeria... was killed by French soldiers,” the presidency said on the 70th anniversary of the revolt that sparked the war, in a new gesture of reconciliation by Macron toward the former colony.
France’s more than a century-long colonization of Algeria and the viciously fought 1954-62 war of independence have left deep scars on both sides.
In recent years, Macron has made several gestures toward reconciliation while stopping short of issuing any apology for French imperialism.
Since coming to power in 2017, Macron has sought “to look at the history of colonization and the Algerian War in the face, with the aim of creating a peaceful and shared memory,” the presidency said.
Ben M’hidi was one of six founding members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) that launched the armed revolt against French rule that led to the war.
The presidency said that according to the official version, Ben M’hidi after his arrest in February 1957 attempted to commit suicide and died during his transfer to the hospital.
But it said he had in fact been killed by soldiers under the command of General Paul Aussaresses, who admitted to this at the beginning of the 2000s.
In 2017, then-presidential candidate Macron dubbed the French occupation a “crime against humanity.”
A report he commissioned from historian Benjamin Stora recommended in 2020 further moves to reconcile the two countries, while ruling out “repentance” and “apologies.”
But Macron, who has sought to build a strong relationship with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, in 2022 questioned whether Algeria existed as a nation before being colonized by France, drawing an angry response from Algiers.


Israel cabinet approves 2025 wartime budget

Updated 01 November 2024
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Israel cabinet approves 2025 wartime budget

  • Israel has been locked in a war with Hamas in Gaza, and since September it has been fighting the Lebanese group Hezbollah

JERUSALEM: Israel’s cabinet on Friday approved a 2025 national budget, a wartime financial package that far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said supported the country’s ongoing wars and encouraged economic growth.
For more than a year, Israel has been locked in a war with Hamas in Gaza, and since September it has been fighting the Lebanese group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“The main objective of the 2025 budget is to maintain the security of the state and achieve victory on all fronts, while safeguarding the resilience of the Israeli economy,” Smotrich said.
The budget, totalling about 607.4 billion shekels ($162 billion), includes a nine billion shekel package to support reserve soldiers.
It will now move to the Knesset, or parliament, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition holds a majority, making approval likely.
Netanyahu welcomed the cabinet’s approval of the budget, saying Smotrich had put together “an important, difficult but necessary budget in a year of war.”
Additional allocations would be made for the defense ministry, as the military fights the two wars, as well as Iran and the groups it backs.
“This budget will help and support the needs of the war so that it will lead to a victory that will allow the strong Israeli economy to grow and prosper for many years,” Smotrich said.
The budget projects a fiscal deficit of about 4.3 percent.
But former prime minister and key opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized the budget, saying it would “increase the expenditure of every family in Israel by 20,000 shekels per year.”


UK urged to evacuate hospitalized children from Gaza

Updated 01 November 2024
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UK urged to evacuate hospitalized children from Gaza

  • British charity Project Pure Hope: ‘We are witnessing a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions’
  • Kamal Aswan Hospital has just 2 doctors to look after more than 150 patients

LONDON: A British charity has urged the UK government to evacuate 21 critically ill children currently in a hospital in northern Gaza, Sky News reported.

The Kamal Adwan Hospital is besieged by Israeli forces and was recently raided by troops, who detained staff and left the facility with only two doctors to care for more than 150 patients.

It was also targeted by an Israeli airstrike on Thursday. Its supplies are reportedly running low and many of its facilities are no longer operational.

Project Pure Hope has called on the UK to facilitate the evacuation of vulnerable children trapped inside.

“We are witnessing a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions,” it said in a statement. “With each passing hour, the children’s chance of survival diminishes without advanced medical intervention — intervention that cannot be provided under the hospital’s current, catastrophic conditions.”

The charity said it has sufficient money to fund an evacuation of 21 children in critical condition at the hospital.

It added that it held a meeting with UK Foreign Office staff this week to discuss its plans, but so far the government has not agreed to take in patients.

“While other countries ... have opened their doors to these paediatric cases, the UK remains a notable outlier, having yet to implement any such programme,” the charity said.

The US, Switzerland, Italy Ireland and the UAE have taken in hospitalized children from Gaza since the start of the conflict over a year ago.

Fears for the safety of people in the area around the hospital have grown in recent weeks amid an uptick in Israeli military activity and Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient aid to reach displaced civilians.

Charities have warned of famine and disease, and aid workers struggle to move around Gaza, especially to the scene of military strikes to help civilian casualties.

Project Pure Hope’s concerns about the fate of patients at Kamal Adwan Hospital have been echoed by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which said it is “deeply concerned” by the situation after one of its staff members was detained by Israeli forces.

Israel claims that Hamas has been using the hospital, located in the Jabaliya refugee camp, as a base, and that it has found weapons stored at the facility. The hospital denies the allegation.


WHO ‘deeply concerned’ about ‘rising attacks’ on Lebanon health care

Updated 01 November 2024
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WHO ‘deeply concerned’ about ‘rising attacks’ on Lebanon health care

  • ‘… We are again and again and again emphasizing that health care is not a target; health workers are not a target’

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Friday it is deeply concerned about Israeli attacks hitting health care workers and facilities in Lebanon, in its war against Hezbollah.
“We are really, really concerned, deeply concerned, about the rising attacks on health workers and the facilities in Lebanon, and we are again and again and again emphasizing that health care is not a target; health workers are not a target,” WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a media briefing in Geneva.